The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
